Guest Editorial: Public Archaeology in India

Any editorial on public archaeology in India cannot escape one of the most contentious issues of current times that compels us to probe deep into the mesh of social power relations, namely the destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, a 500-year-old structure that was razed to the ground on 6 December 1992. The date of 7 November 2019 may go down in the history of the nation as a watershed moment. The Supreme Court of India delivered their verdict on the longrunning Ayodhya legal case, which has been hailed as ‘sealing’ the long-drawn-out conflict of the disputed land of the demolished Babri Masjid. In the title suit the claims of the Hindus — that the mosque had been built on a demolished Hindu temple — were recognized; those of the Muslims were not, and their inability to establish their claims to the 2.77-acre land (where the Babri Masjid once stood) was stated as a key reason. The claim is conjured from allusions to the disputed site being the Hindu god Rama’s birthplace, which were found scattered in Hindu and Sikh texts and colonial gazetteers. Absolute reliance had been sought in excavation findings of the Archaeological Survey of India that mention ‘non-Islamic structures’ below the destroyed mosque in their 2003 report, which were heavily mediated by judicial interventions, as Rachel Verghese has shown so succinctly in this volume. The Supreme Court ruling ultimately proclaimed the faith of the majoritarian community as the basis for authorizing the construction of a Hindu temple at the site (e.g. Mohanty, 2019; Rajagopal, 2019). A Hindu temple is therefore due to be constructed on ruins that never existed. The judgment is beset with contradictions. On the one hand it rebukes the demolition of the 500-year-old Babri Masjid in 1992 as ‘an egregious violation of law’, and admits that this mosque, where namaz was offered regularly at least from 1857, was desecrated on 22/23 December 1949 when an idol of Rama was installed under the central dome, creating a de facto Hindu temple. On the other hand, the Court refrains from recognizing the fundamental right of the minority Muslim community to defend its freedom of religion, which is sanctified by the Indian Constitution. When the Constitution came into existence, namaz was being offered at the site. If a place where namaz is offered is considered as amasjid, then the minority community has a fundamental right to defend its freedom of religion. In its act of refraining to recognize this right, the Court fails to protect the Constitution. By affirming their belief that there was once a temple prior to the building of the public archaeology, Vol. 17 Nos. 2–3, May–August 2018, 69–73